The Latest from Natasha Lomas
International coalition joins the call to ban ‘surveillance advertising’
An international coalition of consumer protection, digital and civil rights organizations and data protection experts has added its voice to growing calls for a ban on what’s been billed as R
Brave’s nontracking search engine is now in beta
Pro-privacy browser Brave, which has been testing its own brand search engine for several months — operating a waitlist where brave (ha!) early adopters could kick the tyres of an upstart altern
EU is now investigating Google’s adtech over antitrust concerns
EU antitrust authorities are finally taking a broad and deep look into Google’s adtech stack and role in the online ad market — confirming today that they’ve opened a formal investig
EU puts out final guidance on data transfers to third countries
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) published its final recommendations yesterday setting on guidance for making transfers of personal data to third countries to comply with EU data protection r
Ban biometric surveillance in public to safeguard rights, urge EU bodies
There have been further calls from EU institutions to outlaw biometric surveillance in public. In a joint opinion published today, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the European Data Prote
Apple’s App Store to face scrutiny in Germany as FCO opens ‘market power’ proceeding
Germany’s competition authority, the FCO, has completed its Big Tech GAFA “bingo” card by opening a proceeding against Apple. As with similar investigations already opened this year
Perspectives on tackling Big Tech’s market power
The need for markets-focused competition watchdogs and consumer-centric privacy regulators to think outside their respective ‘legal silos’ and find creative ways to work together to tackle
UK’s ICO warns over ‘Big Data’ surveillance threat of live facial recognition in public
The UK’s chief data protection regulator has warned over reckless and inappropriate use of live facial recognition (LFR) in public places. Publishing an opinion today on the use of this biometri
Internxt gets $1M to be ‘the Coinbase of decentralized storage’
Valencia-based startup Internxt has been quietly working on an ambitious plan to make decentralized cloud storage massively accessible to anyone with an internet connection. It’s just bagged $1
On a growth tear, DuckDuckGo reveals it picked up $100M in secondary investment last year
Privacy tech continues cooking on gas. To wit: Non-tracking search engine DuckDuckGo has just revealed that it beefed up its balance sheet at the back end of last year with $100 million+ in “ma
Adtech ‘data breach’ GDPR complaint is headed to court in EU
New York-based IAB Tech Labs, a standards body for the digital advertising industry, is being taken to court in Germany by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) in a piece of privacy litigation
UK’s CMA opens market study into Apple, Google’s mobile ‘duopoly’
The U.K.’s competition watchdog will take a deep dive look into Apple and Google’s dominance of the mobile ecosystem, it said today — announcing a market study which will examine the
CJEU ruling could open big tech to more privacy litigation in Europe
A long running privacy fight between Belgium’s data protection authority and Facebook — over the latter’s use of online trackers like pixels and social plug-ins to snoop on web users
Twitter is eyeing new anti-abuse tools to give users more control over mentions
Twitter is looking at adding new features that could help users who are facing abusive situations on its platform as a result of unwanted attention pile-ons, such as when a tweet goes viral for a reas
Europe needs to back browser-level controls to fix cookie consent nightmares, says privacy group
European privacy group noyb, which recently kicked off a major campaign targeting rampant abuse of the region’s cookie consent rules, has followed up by publishing a technical proposal for an au
Google won’t end support for tracking cookies unless UK’s competition watchdog agrees
Well this is big. The U.K.’s competition regulator looks set to get an emergency brake that will allow it to stop Google ending support for third-party cookies, a technology that’s current
InfoSum outs an identity linking tool that’s exciting marketing firms like Experian
InfoSum, a startup which takes a federated approach to third-party data enrichment, has launched a new product (called InfoSum Bridge) that it says significantly expands the customer identity linking
Voice AIs are raising competition concerns, EU finds
The European Union has been digging into the competition implications of AI-powered voice assistants and other Internet of Things (IoT) connected technologies for almost a year. Today it’s put o
ProtonMail gets a slick new look, as privacy tech eyes the mainstream
End-to-end encrypted email service ProtonMail has refreshed its design, updating with a cleaner look and a more customizable user interface — including the ability to pick from a bunch of themes
Terraformation gets $30M to fight climate change with rapid reforesting
Every startup is trying to fix something, but Terraformation is tackling the only problem that must matter to all of us: climate change. This is why it’s in such a big huge hurry. Its mission &#